Action Alerts

Support H.R. 5092 – Crush Act Amendment
Tell your Congressional Representative to support H.R. 5092. This new bill amends the Crush Act to give it a much narrower focus that would still prohibit selling or offering to sell any depictions of animals being crushed, drowned, impaled or burned where such acts are illegal.
Find your US Representative here

Tell USDA: Get Queenie out of San Antonio Zoo and send her to PAWS Sanctuary
Despite widespread public opposition to her transfer, Queenie was moved to the San Antonio Zoo. The move was part of a settlement agreement with circus handler Will Davenport for federal animal welfare charges against him. This action is particularly egregious since the PAWS Sanctuary had made a formal offer to give Queenie a home that would provide the highest possible quality of life including 50 acres to roam, high quality care, her choice of social companions, and some peace and quiet.What you can do:
Please call USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack today at (202) 720-3631, and send the fax at the bottom of this page to Secretary Vilsack and new USDA/White House Liaison Kevin Washoe.

Boycott PETCO and PetSmartVideo footage obtained in a new PETA undercover investigation reveals
disturbing living and dying conditions for animals at Sun Pet Ltd., a
wholesale animal dealer that supplies animals to numerous PETCO and
PetSmart locations. PETA’s investigator documented cruel, extremely crowded, and filthy conditions that forced animals to eat, sleep, urinate, and defecate all in the same tiny space as well as the violent killing and rough handling of birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, gerbils, mice, and rats.
Tell both companies to stop selling animals altogether, and let these companies know that you, your friends, and your family will not be giving them any business until animals are no longer part of their “inventory.”CALL
PETCO 1-888-824-7257
PetSmart 1-800-738-1385

Pass the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act
Tell U.S. Congress to support H.R. 4733, and end the use of gestation crates, veal crates, and battery cages in America.
The U.S. government spends upwards of 1 billion dollars per year on animal products that feed government programs and agencies, like the National School Lunch Program, the federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Armed Services.
The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, H.R. 4733, would require the government to purchase food for these programs only from farms where animals can move freely and extend their limbs in their confinement– that means no gestation crates, veal crates, or battery cages. Since it’s essentially impossible for every packer to trace each piece of meat back to it’s farm of origin, they would need all of their suppliers to comply with these standards; so the law would apply to virtually every farm in the country.
Contact your Senators and US Representatives, and ask them to support The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, H.R. 4733
Find your U.S. Representative hereFind your U.S. Senators here

Supreme Court animal cruelty ruling: All sides find positives
Free speech advocates praised Tuesday’s US Supreme Court decision striking down a federal law banning depictions of animal cruelty. At the same time, animal rights groups are calling on Congress to enact a new, more targeted law, to prevent trafficking in photos and videos depicting acts of severe animal cruelty, including so-called “crush” videos.

Officials seek cause of Snohomish dairy-manure spill
Regulators are still trying to figure out what caused a dairy-farm lagoon to fail earlier this week, spilling millions of gallons of manure that wound up in the Snohomish River. A breach sometime Sunday or early Monday at Bartelheimer Brothers’ waste lagoon near Snohomish is the worst such incident in regulators’ memories. As much as 15 million gallons of manure, water and other organic matter may have flowed into a slough that drains to the river.

Kinder, gentler chickens to be bred to rule future free-range roosts
As those bans go into effect and more birds move to open pens, a solution may lie in the work of an influential Purdue University scientist whose breeding method produces more congenial, peaceful chickens by focusing on the birds best suited for life in groups. The white leghorns bred by William Muir stand sedately wing to wing, staring back timidly from their cages at a Purdue research farm in northern Indiana.

KFC’s Double Down, Their Latest Double Cross
One minute they are teaming up with the money whores at Susan G. Komen to help cure breast cancer by donating money from pink buckets of chicken (what a joke), and the next, they are introducing a sandwich so unhealthy that it could worsen heart disease and obesity statistics all on its own!

World Bank chief urges action to save wild tigers
World Bank President Robert Zoellick called on Wednesday for joint action among countries and organizations to save the dwindling numbers of wild tigers from extinction. There are barely 3,500 tigers left in the wild. Their declining numbers are blamed largely on poaching and the slow destruction of their natural habitat by deforestation.

Watahala Farms: Last commercial dairy standing in Alleghany County
Troubles have pecked away at Bennett and his neighbors over the years. About 30 dairies in the county closed in the last 60 years, indicative of struggles in the industry. Older farmers had no kin to carry on their businesses, or milk prices plummeted and costs grew too much. Still, nearby Rockingham and Franklin counties are the two top-producing areas for dairy in Virginia, according to the Department of Agriculture’s 2007 census.

Eating Vegan: The Elusive Vitamin B12
A long-standing myth about veganism is that animal products are the only dietary sources of vitamin B12. Here’s a little information about this critical vitamin as well as some easy ways to work it into your diet.

An elephant in a Shrine Circus in Pennsylvania killed his trainer. Elephants in circuses suffer from brutal training and treatment, are forced to spend hundreds of hours in small traveling containers, and are deprived of everything instinctual to their nature.

Food Inc to premier on PBS April 21st
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.

Tribes help haze sea lions to save salmon on Columbia
Local tribes are hazing sea lions on the Columbia River as part of an alliance with Washington, Oregon and the Army Corps of Engineers to get rid of sea lions that are endangering salmon and steelhead runs….Eight California sea lions have been trapped and killed this year, as no zoos or aquariums have expressed an interest in giving them homes.

Humane Society finds abuse by U.S. egg producers
An undercover investigation by the Humane Society of the United States of major U.S. egg producers showed “rampant abuse” of hens, which the animal rights group said on Wednesday could prompt more consumers to embrace “cage-free” methods of production.‘Growing concern’ over marketing tainted beef
Beef containing harmful pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals is being sold to the public because federal agencies have failed to set limits for the contaminants or adequately test for them, a federal audit finds.

New Documents Boost Egg-Price Fixing Lawsuit ClaimThe lawsuit alleges that as egg prices climbed between 2004 and 2008, industry officials who blamed rising feed costs were covering up an orchestrated hen kill-off to reduce supplies…The United Egg Producers had called the stock reduction an animal welfare effort to give caged chickens more room. The suit maintains it was a ruse to reduce the number of egg-laying hens and increase prices.

India Develops Transgenic Chicken
India has developed a transgenic chicken variety that is not only fleshier than normal breeds sold in poultry shops, but can also be used in the treatment of diseases. The breakthrough research could help boost production in a country that ranks among the world’s top three egg producers and among the 20 biggest poultry producers…Transgenic chickens have already been developed in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and China.

Food writer credits his doctor with beneficial shift toward veganism
Still largely an omnivore as he completed his vegetarian cookbook, Bittman says he didn’t make the big change in his diet until he (a) saw statistics about the environmental impact of large-scale livestock production; and (b) recognized, as he turned 57, that he had high cholesterol, high blood sugar, sleep apnea, bad knees and 35 extra pounds. “My doctor said, ‘I think you should become a vegan,’ ” Bittman says, referring to a diet that includes no animal products

Ask Officials to Cancel Cruel ‘Donkey Basketball’ Game
A “donkey basketball” game is scheduled to take place at Snohomish High School in Snohomish, Washington, on Wednesday, April 7.
Donkey basketball games are miserable for the animals involved. Hauled around the country in cramped and stuffy trailers, the donkeys are denied proper exercise, and food and water are often withheld before games to prevent unsightly “accidents.” The events are loud, frantic, and very stressful for the donkeys, who are often forced to “play” by being pulled, shoved, screamed at, or whipped when they don’t cooperate. Although experts agree that an average-size donkey is only able to bear a little more than 100 pounds, in donkey basketball games, the animals are typically forced to carry full-grown adults.TAKE ACTION
Please urge Superintendent William Mester and Principal Beth Porter to cancel the donkey basketball game immediately and replace it with an event in which all participants choose to be involved.
contact:

Speak Up For California Sea Lions
As the spring Chinook salmon run begins in the Columbia River, California sea lions, who live in this Pacific Northwest river and are routinely scapegoated and labeled a “problem” – again are in the government crosshairs. They are getting trapped and killed by the Oregon and Washington wildlife agencies for eating fish – a tiny fraction of the salmon returning to their birthplace to spawn. Since March 2009, when federal authorization was given to bypass the protections of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, 33 sea lions have been trapped, 24 are dead and the rest put into permanent captivity.

TAKE ACTION
Please check out this link to politely voice your opposition to this pointless wildlife killing. Insist this program end immediately.

Animal rights group seeks a ‘basic level of decency’
Animal rights advocates are strengthening their call to end animal abuse across the state, urging legislators to pass legislation in 2010 that would crack down on animal fights, puppy mills and the intense confinement of farm animals.

Blue Monkey Building
Why would these businesses locate here? I suspect the reason has to do with the purpose of the blue building next door – it’s a UW primate research laboratory, home to the Washington National Primate Research Center. Only once have I heard a monkey type noise from there; it was probably being transported from a truck into the facility.

Animal-Rights Advocates Bare Teeth in a Novel Way
Animal-rights groups are aggressively stepping up legal tactics in an approach that is picking up steam nationally. The latest such instance was heard in a Wisconsin court on Thursday involving sheep that died of decompression sickness. In Madison, prosecutors declined to pursue University of Wisconsin officials and researchers whose test subjects, three sheep, inadvertently died of an illness that befalls deep-sea divers, decompression sickness or the bends, during U.S. Navy-financed experiments aimed at helping submariners. But two animal-rights groups, Alliance for Animals and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, seized on a little-invoked state law to aid their case.

Tiger Abuse in China Sparks Calls for Animal Rights
It is an irony not lost on the Chinese public that the Year of the Tiger has not been good for the big cats… The Chinese government has come under increasing pressure from owners of tiger farms to relax the ban on trading tiger parts. So far the government has resisted those efforts, a move that seems to be in keeping with shifting public sentiment. The back-to-back tiger tragedies have been followed closely in China, spurring calls for greater legal protections for animals.

An experiment with vegan living leads to new way of eating
On Feb. 1, I flipped a culinary switch and became a vegan overnight. For a month, I planned to shop, cook and eat without any animal products. No meat, eggs or dairy, period. The intent was mostly earnest. Portland has a large and quickly growing vegan community. And after seeing documentaries like “Food, Inc.” and reading works by Michael Pollan, I’d become increasingly convinced that eating less meat — perhaps even eliminating it altogether — was the greenest, most-humane thing I could do.

On Friday, April 2, the Northwest Animal Rights Network welcomed the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition as they stopped into Seattle in their first stop on their 40-state Compassion for the Animals Road Expedition. Together they held the Funeral Motorcade for the Sea Lions in light of the recent new stories of sea lions having been shot to death in Puget Sound. The culprits were fishermen, shooting seals who were guilty merely of the crime of eating. In light of such wanton killing, NARN and GAHC are taking a stand against such a gross display of greed and arrogance, not only for the plight of the sea lions, but for all animals who end up having their lives sacrificed with no regard whatsoever.

Despite the weather bringing blustery winds reaching 30 mph, rain bursts, and a high of no more than 45 degrees, 20 cars took part in the motorcade, drawing Q13 News to the scene. After a eulogy in Volunteer Park given by Peter Keller of NARN, as well as a speech by Anthony Marr of GAHC, the motorcade assembled and drove across the 520 floating bridge, dodging the cresting waves splashing over the sides of the bridge driven by high winds, and reconvened in Bellevue at the Bellefields Park. There another speech was given and the participants networked together to continue this work forward to give voice to all animals being killed at the hands of human self-interest.

The common argument that fishermen give is that the sea lions “eat too much salmon,” so to them it’s OK to kill sea lions so that fishermen can kill the salmon instead. However, salmon comprise less than 5% of the sea lions’ diet, and that sea lions in fact benefit the salmon by targeting the other two dozen species of predatory fish that prey upon salmon in far greater quantities–if anything needs to be sacrificed, it should be fishing, not sea lions.

In our grief we speak, that all killings of sentient beings must end!

The eulogy given was as follows:

Greetings ladies and gentlemen,

We are gathered here today to honor ten individuals whose lives have been tragically cut short over these past three months. Here in Puget Sound, ten of this region’s most distinctive animals were found shot to death, their only crime being that they were born as sea lions, and merely living as nature intended.

No longer will they be able to experience the joys of the open sea, of lounging in the sun, playing on the shore, of catching fish. They were killed by predators, an invasive species not native to this region, one who thinks fish was theirs and theirs alone. Humans were responsible, the only species of animal that is motivated by greed, and it was greed that motivated them to shoot to death these unfortunate creatures.

Many top minds throughout history hace said the greatness of a society can be judged by hoe well they treat animals, and the fact that we deem it appropriate to kill animals simply because we feel they are inconvenient really calls into question how far we’ve advanced.

Today we grieve not only the tragic death of these indiviuals, but we are here to pay homage to all animals who have paid the ultimate price in service of mankind’s greed and arrogance.

The next time anyone encounters a dead animal, whether it be on the shores or fields with a bullet in its body, or it be shrinkwrapped on a grocery shelf, they should bow their heads in reverence to the life that was sacrificed, and make a pledge to stand up and say–the killing has got to stop!

Calendar

January2019

NARN's board of directors meets monthly to discuss our campaigns and administrative issues. Guests are welcome to attend if we have enough time on our agenda.

If you wish to have an agenda item added to the NARN Board Meeting, please email info@narn.org at least a day in advance. You can also send us a message on Facebook anytime or even the day of the meeting and we'll get back to you. All NARN Board Meetings are held in Seattle.

Join local activists to help educate the public about the dangers of purchasing dogs from places like Puppyland. Puppyland is a new store in Puyallup that sells puppies from breeders.

The demo is until 3pm, but don't feel that you have to be there the entire time. Come for an hour or two to help hand out fliers or hold a sign.

This is a peaceful demonstration, inspired by our desire to speak out against the dangers of allowing businesses like Puppyland to exist in our communities. Join us in providing free, educational information to the public about the dangers of supporting backyard breeding practices and puppy mills, the importance of spaying and neutering pets, the time and money it takes to responsibly care for a living creature, and the positive effects of screening pet owners through application processes.

For updates see the Facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2093159060741059/

Come join us for a delicious brunch at the fabulous Celest Cafe AND write some letters for animals.

NARN provides the stationery, pens, stamps, sample letters, and ideas for what to write -- just bring yourself. You can even bring your laptop if you'd prefer to type or email your letters!

Why letter writing? Letter writing is a simple way to make change for the animals! At our letter writing events, we write for many different reasons: opposition to the creation of new animal laboratories, support for sending animals to sanctuary, promotion of vegan events and issues through letters to the media, and raising the spirits of activists and comrades who have been jailed for their pro-animal and political actions!

Join local activists to help educate the public about the dangers of purchasing dogs from places like Puppyland. Puppyland is a new store in Puyallup that sells puppies from breeders.

The demo is until 6pm, but don't feel that you have to be there the entire time. Come for an hour or two to help hand out fliers or hold a sign.

This is a peaceful demonstration, inspired by their desire to speak out against the dangers of allowing businesses like Puppyland to exist in our communities. Join them in providing free, educational information to the public

For updates see the Facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/512061562622307/

The University of Washington's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) will be meeting to discuss various research protocols (study designs). This is your chance to voice your opinion about the research on animals that goes on at the UW. Please come and speak for the animals!
The meetings are held at the South Campus Center; Room #342 (in between San Juan Road & Columbia Road); behind the Magnuson Health Sciences Center (1925 N.E. Pacific St) )
http://www.washington.edu/maps/

Unfortunately, they frequently re-schedule or cancel their meetings in an attempt to avoid the public, so please call the Public Affairs Office at 206-543-9180 to make sure the meeting is still happening at the given time.
You can also check out their calendar here (copy & paste link into your browser)
http://oaw.washington.edu/iacuc-meeting-schedule/

This month we will be checking out Travelers Thali House. They have tons of vegan options. See their menu here:
http://www.travelersthalihouse.com/Menu102014.html
The Social Discussion Group is a casual event. Drinkers and non-drinkers are welcome, and you don't have to be vegetarian to participate. We hope you'll join us! Questions? Contact rachel[at]narn[dot]org

Join local activists to help educate the public about the dangers of purchasing dogs from places like Puppyland. Puppyland is a new store in Puyallup that sells puppies from breeders.

The demo is until 3pm, but don't feel that you have to be there the entire time. Come for an hour or two to help hand out fliers or hold a sign.

This is a peaceful demonstration, inspired by their desire to speak out against the dangers of allowing businesses like Puppyland to exist in our communities. Join them in providing free, educational information to the public

For updates see the Facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/406570843449273/

La Cocina School at El Centro de la Raza will be offering a tasty Vegan Tamales Cooking Class in partnership with the Food Empowerment Project! Now is your chance to learn how to make vegan tamales from a master tamalera! The tamales are prepared in the handmade and traditional fashion using cultural ingredients. Sweet sangrias, beer and wine will also be served and is included in the ticket price.

Class will begin promptly at 10:00 AM in the kitchen at El Centro de la Raza. Classes typically take 2.5 to 3 hours long. All cooking supplies and ingredients will be provided, but please bring your own apron.

The money for the La Cocina School at El Centro de la Raza Latin Cooking Classes go to fund El Centro de la Raza's Senior programs.

For updates on this event see
https://www.facebook.com/events/2404477662895760/